Holiday Control

A Sizable Apple Readers:
I wanted to post a holiday eating guide before Thanksgiving. Here's a few tips to managing the season of food successfully. Enjoy the early post, and have a good Thanksgiving!

Welcome the holiday season, time for family, friends and the temptation of mass amounts of food. It's the time of year where a majority of diets go sour, and the beginning of the I'll definitely get to the gym tomorrow compromise for another cookie which turns into six.

The Washington Post estimates that Americans eat about 4,500 calories and 229 grams of fat on Thanksgiving alone, which is more than double the daily recommendation.

This year, don't let the holidays be your excuse to give in no matter what stage of health you're in. Being ahead of the gang come the New Years resolution rush will make staying on track past February much easier.

For Thanksgiving and other holiday dinners, think about these steps for staying true to your figure.

Helping Hand-
Offering to help make dinner or bring a dish to share is not only thoughtful and impressive, but can help you better control your intake. There are several ways to cut back on the calories in traditional Thanksgiving dishes.

The skin on meets, extra cheese in casserole dishes, and salty foods are dangerous additions to your plate. Here is a great site that gives tips on substitutions for holiday meals.

Portion Control-
This becomes a bit harder as it seems plates grow in size, and are piled higher. Stay true to your normal portions. Choose to be served on smaller plates than the rest of your family. Serve yourself smaller than normal portions to make yourself feel better about going back for seconds.

When you are fixing your plate, try to fill it more with vegetables than starches. Less mashed potatoes and gravy, more green beens.

Stall-
Eat until you feel full and you'll most likely feel like you're about to explode 15 minutes later. This is because our bodies take some time to digest food, thus the feeling of over eating that Thanksgiving is known for.

Stalling during dinner is a perfect way to keep from going wild on stuffing. Think about leading dinner time conversation, drinking more water or cutting up your food into smaller pieces.

Snack-
In this case, snacking may not be the enemy, but if you're munching on some left over veggies from the stuffing, you can skip the need to stuff your face at dinner.

Thanksgiving isn't an excuse to skip lunch. Making it to dinner content instead of starving will help you eat less.

Tread Tradition-
Exercising right after turkey dinner isn't everyone's idea of a great time, but getting your family to go on a walk between dinner and dessert is a better alternative to laying on the couch watching football.

As with all tips for controlling your intake during the holiday season, make sure to eat consciously, and be attentive your plate to know when its time to turn away the extra dessert. What keeps you on plan during the holidays? How do you know when you've had enough?